¥$ "Vultures 1" Review
A soulless, tedious milestone for Ye.
Embroiled in increasingly hot controversy—as is now seemingly the case with every one of West’s projects—Vultures 1 arrives late, a bizarre and hollow collaboration between 46 year old Ye and 41 year old Ty Dolla $ign that has found itself at the centre of tired online discourse amongst the hip-hop community.
Released against a backdrop of anti-semitic comments by the rapper and a confusing deluge of both public hatred and idolatry—Ye is at his very worst. Writing-wise, the album teems with an almost chronic, sterile, mid-life-crisis-style focus on sex and money, which isn’t necessarily anything particularly shocking or new for Kanye (Yeezus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy), but dealt with in a boring, blase and poor way. There’s an unshakeable feeling that the listener has been here too many times before: Ye and Ty are just too old for this. Should this really be the face of modern hip-hop? Kanye’s raps are also poor as ever. Sounding spluttered, soulless and uncanny, Ye is continuously overshadowed by the project’s other rappers.Where Ty Dolla $ign’s verses and melodies occasionally provide a glimmer of hope for the project, Kanye does the opposite, frequently breaking into an autotuned, flimsy singing voice. This being said, the album intermittently offers promising moments. Kanye’s myriad of features serve to consistently elevate tracks and provide hope for a new, fresher generation of rappers—Carti’s ‘deep voice’ verse on CARNIVAL, and North West’s gleeful raps on TALKING are definite standouts. Disregarding the truly horrendous PROBLEMATIC, the beats aren’t half bad either—creatively industrialist (FUK SUMN), homages to Kanye’s catalogue (BURN) or retrospectively ambient and bittersweet (BEG FORGIVENESS).
Coinciding with the 20 year anniversary of his first album, The College Dropout, Vultures 1 serves as a sad milestone in Ye’s largely innovative and fascinating career as an artist, producer and creative, officially confirming the path Kanye is on as a creative and (spoiler alert) it’s not a good one.